The Kids Are Alright
by DD Agent
Summary: A little redheaded girl doesn't want to dress like her older sister did one Halloween. Gibbs/Shepard Family Fic.


**The Kids Are Alright by DD Agent**

_I do not own NCIS or any of its characters, or its settings - all belongs to the lovely folks at CBS._

_A while ago I conceived the concept of Micha and Jay. When I started working down my Halloween Prompt Fest, the two ideas seemed to gel. broadwayjamie prompted me "Gibbs and Jenny giving out candy to trick or treaters turns into a spooky case". I played loose with the prompt, but I am quite enthused by what I wrote!_

_Enjoy! _

"I don't see why I can't go as a NCIS Agent."

Jenny looked up from her desk to see her four year old daughter pout. Micha Gibbs was wearing her father's oversized baseball cap, a toy gun on her waist and a scowl that any agent would recognise as a Gibbs-glare. Sometimes she was _so _much like her father.

"Because your Daddy wants you to go as a princess," Jenny replied, adding her signature to another stack of files. Micha still didn't look impressed.

The child walked around from the desk to sit on her mother's lap. Jenny held her close, wrapping her arms around the little girl. They had the same colouring, right down to the eyes. Both her children had her green eyes rather than Jethro's piercing blue. At times, that had been a godsend. Micha bowed her head and looked down to the ground, something obviously bothering her. After a few moments, and some squeezing from her mother, she reached into the pocket of her dungarees and pulled something out. Jenny looked at it.

"Where did you get this, Micha?"

"Daddy's toolbox." Micha frowned. "I don't want to be a princess. _She _was a princess."

Jenny sighed softly over the picture of Kelly Gibbs. She was a beautiful little girl. Jenny would have to have another conversation with her lover over the way he thought about Micha. Jenny knew that Jethro loved their little girl, but sometimes he didn't seem to realise that both his daughters were very different. Kelly had loved piano and dolls. Micha climbed trees and played with matches. Thank God Micha didn't share Jethro's features.

Before she could comfort her daughter, Cynthia knocked on the door and ushered Jenny's son into her office. Her assistant smiled at the little boy before leaving him alone with his mother and sister. Micha started to giggle at the state of her older brother until Jenny gave her a glare of her own.

Standing by the doorway, Jay Shepard rubbed his nose, smearing the green Frankenstein make up over his fingers. Jenny picked her daughter off of her lap and went to her son. "Ducky did a good job with your make up, Jay."

He just nodded, avoiding her gaze. Jenny crouched down to look at her son. He had his father's hair, but his jaw was so much like his grandfathers. "You'll scare some people tonight."

"I don't like scaring people," Jay mumbled, biting his lips vigorously.

Jenny adjusted some of the hair on his head, before flicking his lip to stop her son from chewing it off. "You look wonderful, Jasper."

Jay smiled at his mother's praise and barrelled into her chest. Jenny hugged him back, not quite believing that she was holding her own son. It seemed so long ago that she had become Director of NCIS and ended up giving in to Jethro too quickly on her first night back in DC. But she now had the man she loved, and two beautiful children. If she lost the job, she wouldn't even notice.

"Son, you're getting green make up all over your mother's no doubt expensive blouse."

Jethro had arrived, his presence immediately felt. At his father's words, Jay stumbled away from his mother and started to whimper his apologies. Jenny immediately grabbed him back and picked him up, adjusting his soft brown hair again. She rubbed her nose against his green one.

"Hugs with you are worth it."

Jenny held her son as tight as she could, her eyes closed. Her smile was so sincere she thought her face would crack.

X

Now both his children were at school, Jenny and himself had decided to take part in Halloween. _School. Children. With Jenny_. Sometimes Leroy Jethro Gibbs couldn't believe how lucky he was. When he had gone over that night to ask Jenny why she was avoiding him, he had never even considered that she was pregnant. But as she yelled at him about it in the middle of their argument, he couldn't conceive of something better to have happened.

"Thank you!" cried a happy chorus of small children as they left his doorway.

Jethro smiled. It had been too long since he had felt part of a holiday. "Happy Halloween!"

He waved off a couple more trick or treaters and closed the door behind them. Suddenly he felt his lover's arms wrap around his waist. He looked backward to see Jenny grinning up at him, wearing a very long witches dress. His angle, however, let him see the red lingerie she was wearing and the potential treat he was going to be getting once their little monsters were tucked up in bed.

"Shouldn't it be orange?" Jethro asked, nuzzling the top of her cleavage.

"Not with my colouring." She kissed him on the nose, exhaling. "Can we talk about something?"

Jethro looked up at her and sighed. He knew that face. "Don't start about the princess dress. I just thought it would be better if our little girl went out in something more girly than a gun and a baseball cap!"

"Unlike her mother, who wears princess dresses and crowns to work?"

Jethro rubbed the bridge of his nose, and leaned against the doorway wall. Four marriages had taught him that nothing he said now would go down well with Jenny. She was a very protective mother bear, and this was definitely one argument that she would fight to win.

"I didn't mean to upset her. I take it she saw the picture of Kelly dressed up for Halloween? I noticed my tool box had been tampered with." He shook his head at Jenny's snort. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. Micha should be playing with dolls and going out with her friends and having ice cream parties. She shouldn't be picking locks, and setting her brothers trains on fire!"

Jenny pressed her hands against Jethro's chest. "Or making little wooden trains for Jay instead of the plastic ones people buy him? Jethro, Micha is so you it's scary. She _adores _you, _worships _you…but she doesn't like being compared to Kelly. And to be honest I don't like it either."

"I don't compare them! I'm just used to little girls being little girls." He sighed. "Is it wrong I want to play baseball with my son and take my daughter to her sleepovers?"

She head-slapped him then. "Leroy Jethro Gibbs, _wake up_. Stop wanting what you consider standard. Because there is no such thing with children, _especially ours_." He could see the smile forming on her face. When she had been pregnant with Jay, he had been the calm one - after all he had gone through it before. How had she ended up the expert parent?

"Don't you want to dress up dolls and do make up with Micha?"

Jenny stroked his face, smiling and shaking her head at him. "Jay likes learning languages, he likes reading. Micha likes building things and shouting. At Micha's age I was in my tree house playing jungle explorers. I want her to be a daddy's little girl, because I was. I want her to have the same relationship with you that I had with my father."

Jethro smiled, realising his lover was right. He clung onto her tight, kissing her hair. "I love you. So very much, Jenny."

They kissed softly for a moment, before Jenny leaned back for air. She then poked him in the chest. "I love you too. Now get dressed. We're taking the kids out trick or treating."

X

He watched Micha from the doorway. She had his old bedroom while Jay had Kelly's - he and Jenny now slept in the converted attic. Her bedroom was painted a bright blue, and she had a collection of cars on the floor and a lock picking kit that had been a present from Aunt Ziva. His beautiful baby girl was currently looking at the princess dress Jethro had bought her with her lip sticking out, and a couple of tears in her eyes.

"You know, I don't know what to go as for Halloween."

Micha turned around, clutching the dress even harder. Jethro moved into his daughter's room and crouched down, stroking his daughter's hair. She was the spitting image of her mother, and although she was beautiful she was no fairy princess.

From behind his back he pulled the NCIS cap he was holding. For a moment memories of old and lost friends sparked in his mind at the sight of that bullet hole. Jethro placed it on his daughter's head, twisting the cap before leaving it alone.

"How bout we go as NCIS Agents? You can be my partner."

"Like Mommy was before you two fell in love?"

Jethro chuckled. "Yeah." He stroked his daughter's cheek, realising that he needed to make things right between him and the beautiful little girl in front of him. "You are perfect, Micha. So much like your mother. Everything I love."

Micha started to cry properly, and Jethro brushed the tears away with his thumbs. "No tears, Micha, please." He sighed. "You know, you're a lot like your sister. Pretty, strong. But you're not my little princess, Micha." They both looked towards the dress. Jethro reached up to adjust her hat with a wink. "You're my little Probie."

She giggled. "I love you Daddy. Can we work in the basement later?"

Jethro nodded his head, trying to stop himself from crying. It had been easier with Kelly, somehow. Being away a lot, they cherished the moments they had together. They didn't have these moments of doubt, of disagreement. But with Micha he got to share everything, and be a part of every step, every climb. He wouldn't change a thing.

"I think it's about time we started our own boat, what do you say?"

Micha threw her arms around her father, and Jethro picked her up. She was so like Jenny - strong willed, beautiful and impossible to say no to. But she was also like him. Loyal, always in trouble…

"Just make sure you wash out a mason jar for my milk."

Jethro chuckled. She was definitely his daughter.

X

They were quite a little family. A witch, Frankenstein and two NCIS Agents. They walked down the streets in their little part of the world, stopping for chocolate and apples and even toothbrushes from the creepy dentist down the street. Of course every house they stopped at had been vetted twice by her security detail, so he wasn't dangerous. Or so Jenny had to keep telling Jay and Micha.

"Hey Jay, what you gonna do with all that candy?" Jethro asked. He was carrying Micha in his arms, Tony's old hat backwards on her head. She was already eating some of her loot and quite happily doing so.

Jay thought for a moment before replying, his hand tight around his mothers. "I want to give some of it to Ducky. He helped with my costume."

Jethro stopped and looked down at his son. Jay rarely spoke. He said hello to Abby in sign language and Jethro knew his son conversed with his mother in French. But he didn't seem to speak in English, he took the silent type to extremes. Maybe this Halloween would be a fresh start for them all. Or maybe both his children were possessed - he'd have to check for little red dots later.

"That's sweet of you Jay," Jenny praised, and Jay beamed at his mother. "You going to keep the rest of it?"

Jay shook his head, quite serious for a five year old. "I'm not into chocolate right now."

"What are you into?" Jethro asked as they moved onto the lawn of another house.

"Snails."

Jethro let Micha down and watched as both his children rushed over and started ringing the doorbell. Replaying the conversation in his mind, he turned to his lover with a curious expression about his son and his sudden willingness to talk. "Did you give him a valium or something?"

Jenny chuckled and shook her head. "We had a little word about him trying to talk more. And by little word, I mean I bribed him."

"With what?

"Snails." Jethro still looked confused. "Last week Jay ended up coming with me to a lunch meeting and I ordered snails. He's been wanting to try them ever since. So I let my son eat snails and now he produces sentences."

Jethro laughed before moving over to kiss Jenny. His lips lingered over hers, his hand lifting her chin. They had come so far, and they barely had time to take a breath. But neither of them were complaining. "We didn't do too badly with them."

"They're perfect. Strange, but perfect. They get that from their father."

He chuckled, the smile on his face irrepressible. "I'm strange but perfect?"

Jenny nodded before turning to their children. The sight that met her was Micha poking someone with a stick. "MICHA!"

The little redhead turned back to her mother with an expression that Jethro definitely remembered from when his lover was his Probie. "It's okay, he's dead!"

Jethro shook his head. "That's not an exc-What?"

Jenny looked alarmed and ran over to the doorway where the elderly man who lived at the house had collapsed. She checked his pulse and swallowed when she realised there was none. She looked over at her two children: Micha seemed happy that there was a crime for her to solve and Jay just frowned, looking like Sherlock Holmes had gone as Frankenstein's Monster for Halloween.

"Does this mean we've got to stop trick or treating?"

Jenny turned from her son and looked behind her, smiling at her lover. He was already pulling out his phone to call Ducky to tell him about the dead body. As it was close to the home of Director Shepard, his team would carry out the initial findings until they proved it wasn't a failed assassination attempt.

"It means Daddy has to."

X

She liked watching him work. Usually she played his boss when she got the chance to do so, but not tonight. Tonight she was his lover, and the mother of his children. Jay was on her lap, sleeping softly despite the noise around them. Micha was trying to get a better view of them shooting and sketching, even though Jenny had all but handcuffed her to her.

"Micha…sit still."

Her little redhead pouted. "I want to help Daddy. I can draw chalk around the body."

"You can't draw chalk around the body, too much of a risk of ruining evidence. Same with tape. It's why you always take photographs of the scene with the body in it," Jenny explained, cursing herself as soon as she finished. She and Jethro had tried to shield their children from that world, but both of them enjoyed their jobs too much not to include their children in them.

"What else can't you do?"

"Can't work a crime scene without gloves."

Jenny and Micha looked over to see that Jethro had returned to them. He was pulling off his own gloves so he could pick up Micha and hold her next to his lover. "Looks like the guy was killed with an axe. Large wound in his back."

"You want to make that statement child friendly, Jethro?" He opened his mouth to say more to his eager daughter but Jenny covered it with her hand. "You're a nightmare. Now me and these ghouls are going to go home, stick on _Hocus Pocus _and eat candy while you catch a killer." Jenny picked up Jay, thankfully still asleep. "I love you."

"Love you too. I'll try to be home as quick as I can. Enjoy your candy Probie," Jethro said, stroking his little girl's hair and blowing his lover a kiss.

Jenny walked away with their two children and Jethro returned to the crime scene. It would be a long night, and he was pretty sure that one of his children if not both would get nightmares and _he_ would get an earful from Jenny. But it was all worth it for the three perfect people with green eyes he loved so much.


End file.
